1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for creating an error correction coding scheme for reducing data loss. It further relates to a method, a device, a computer program product and a computer program for reducing data loss. It further relates to a system for protecting data stored on at least one storage unit against uncorrectable media errors.
2. Background Art
A storage unit is, for example, based on at least one magnetic disk or optical disk or on solid state memory as a storage medium. As the storage capacity of individual storage units grows, the probability of encountering at least one media-related error while reading data stored on at least one storage medium of a storage unit also increases. Data is lost when the error cannot be corrected by re-reading the specific part of the medium. Reliability of systems comprising two or more storage units can be increased by storing redundant data distributed to the two or more storage units. Such systems are known as redundant array of independent disks (RAID). A RAID configured system primarily reduces data loss due to a complete failure of a storage unit.
US 2005/0108594 A1 discloses a method to protect data on a disk drive against uncorrectable media errors. The protection against uncorrectable media errors is provided for a RAID configured storage system by a technique in which redundancy information sectors are associated with data information sectors. The data information sectors and the redundancy information sectors are written as a single segment on a single storage unit. The redundancy information is either based on a Reed-Solomon code, an XOR-based code or one-dimensional parity.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method for creating a coding scheme for reducing data loss that is simpler than previously-proposed techniques. It is also desirable to provide a method, a device, a computer program and a computer program product for reducing data loss that is simpler than previously-proposed techniques. It is further also desirable to provide a system for protecting data stored on at least one storage unit against uncorrectable media errors that is simpler and more reliable than previously-proposed techniques.